


Creative Angles

by booksong



Series: SportsFest 2018 Bonus Rounds [6]
Category: Free!
Genre: Gou has the best club promotion ideas, Height Differences, M/M, Pre-Relationship, kabedons
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-19
Updated: 2018-11-19
Packaged: 2019-08-25 17:22:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,707
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16665010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/booksong/pseuds/booksong
Summary: "“That’s perfect!” Gou cried from beside them, the rapid-fire clicks of her own camera sounding as excited as she was.  “Don’t move, either of you!”Rei couldn’t have moved if he wanted to; he was too afraid that shifting at this point might cause something drastic to occur between his and Nagisa’s mouths.  He wasn’t sure what his expression looked like at the moment, but it probably wasn’t beautiful.Whowas going to want to buy this photobook again?"OR; Rei isn't sure how his aesthetic sensibilities--or his heart--are going to make it through Gou's latest idea to promote the swim club.





	Creative Angles

**Author's Note:**

> *Over two months after SportsFest, I've finally decided to post up my bonus round entries! They'll all be collected in the 'SportsFest 2018 Bonus Round' series (though each stands completely on its own) if you'd like to check out the others. Many of these pairings and fandoms I've never written for before, so please let me know what you think!
> 
> Written for BR 4: Caps, for the prompt of [THIS](https://sportsfest.dreamwidth.org/11674.html?thread=2085786#cmt2085786) series of screenshots from _Wotaku ni Koi wa Muzukashii._
> 
> I've loved Reigisa since Free! first aired and I love them still--this was written right after Ep. 5 of DttF, in fact.

“Mako-chan, make sure you get all the angles!”

“Nagisa...ah, the angles might have to be a bit...limited for this one.” Makoto paused, letting the camera he was holding drop a little. He clearly wasn’t quite sure how best to explain to Nagisa that creative camera angles were the only thing keeping this particular shot from looking, well... _a bit lopsided_ would be putting it kindly, which Makoto always did.

Rei, however, had no such qualms when it came to imperfect aesthetics. “Nagisa-kun _please_ , I feel ridiculous!”

“Why?” Nagisa broke character for a moment, although the mischievous playboy smirk he’d adopted honestly looked more at home on his face than it had any right to, in Rei’s opinion. “I bet it looks really cool close-up from the side, Rei-chan!”

Rei shifted, grimacing as his legs tingled with pins and needles. He was crouching against the side of the school building in an ungainly and _extremely_ un-beautiful half-squat, back pressed against the brick. Nagisa was leaning over him, hands pressed against the wall on either side of his head, face very close to Rei’s. He still smelled like chlorine from practice earlier, and having his bright eyes so close for this prolonged period had possibly made Rei put up with this absurd photoshoot for longer than he should have. 

“The composition of this shot would be much more balanced, and in line with what I believe is the conventional ‘ _kabedon_ ’ arrangement, if I was the one...” Rei colored a little; _‘cornering you’_ just sounded like a bit _much,_ “...on the outside,” he finished as firmly as he could.

“It’s always fun to shake things up a little though, Rei-chan!” Nagisa stretched his arms briefly, and then adjusted his stance against the wall so he was leaning on one forearm, his face dropping in even closer to Rei’s. Their foreheads bumped a little and Rei inhaled sharply, trying to make sure his brain had enough oxygen so that it didn’t short-circuit at the proximity. Nagisa gave a quiet little huff of a laugh that was pure Nagisa underneath the lidded, smoldering look he’d adopted, and Rei was pretty sure he was the only who heard, they were that close.

“That’s perfect!” Gou cried from beside them, the rapid-fire clicks of her own camera sounding as excited as she was. “Don’t move, either of you!”

Rei couldn’t have moved if he wanted to; he was too afraid that shifting at this point might cause something drastic to occur between his and Nagisa’s mouths. He wasn’t sure what his expression looked like at the moment, but it probably wasn’t beautiful. 

_Who_ was going to want to buy this photobook again?

He must have exclaimed this out loud because Gou lowered her camera. “Don’t worry, I’ve already got almost thirty pre-orders lined up,” she said brightly, reaching into her back pocket for a small notepad, which she flipped through. “And that’s not even counting the sales I’m sure we’ll make at the actual festival!”

Mercifully, Nagisa straightened up, this particular shoot apparently over. “I think it’s an amazing fundraising idea, Gou-chan,” he told her. “And it only makes sense that we do all the combinations; that way everyone gets to be in the photos equally!”

Rei pushed himself into a standing position with a groan, and Nagisa turned back, concerned. “Did you get a cramp, Rei-chan? Need me to help you stretch it?” 

The last thing Rei needed was Nagisa’s hands on any part of him at this point, but he managed to keep his thoughts to himself this time and merely cleared his throat. “No, thank you--I’ll be fine in a moment, Nagisa-kun.”

“You two can take a break while we do another one for Haru and Makoto,” Gou told them.

Incidentally, their first shoot with Haru and Makoto, where Haru had been the... _kabedon_ -er? _Aggressor?_ Honestly all the descriptors Rei could think of for these roles felt so _crude..._ had looked almost as ridiculous as his own with Nagisa must have. Makoto had crouched in a similar way so that Haru appeared to be standing over him, but the look on his face kept sliding into fond, rather than the flustered or intimidated that Rei had gathered were the expected reactions of the wall-pinned party in this type of situation. At least Gou had complimented Haru on _his_ perfect expression (which to Rei just seemed to be Haru’s normal resting expression anyway).

Makoto on the other hand, Rei reflected as Nagisa now took over the other camera and joined Gou in circling their senpais like a couple of clicking sharks, was of the perfect height and build to pull off a pose like this. He was tall and broad and loomed quite intimidatingly, although ironically Haru’s impassive expression in the face of said looming sort of took the intended atmosphere out of the whole scene, now that their places were reversed. And Makoto kept breaking into a sheepish smile or ducking his head to hide a laugh, unable to meet Haru’s eyes with any seriousness for more than a couple seconds. 

“C’mon Haru-chan!” Nagisa urged, ever-optimistic. “Doesn’t this pose make your heart go ‘doki-doki’ even a little?”

Haru blinked at him, then turned his eyes up to Makoto. He looked considering for a brief moment, and then decided, “I’m hungry. We’re still eating lunch after this, right?”

Gou sighed. “I think I got a couple of good shots at least. Rei-kun, Nagisa-kun, let’s switch you two now.”

Nagisa was practically wiggling with excitement as he got into place against the wall. He beckoned Rei closer with both hands. “C’mon Rei-chan, make sure you _kabedon_ me really good!” 

Rei, who was still not entirely convinced you could use _kabedon_ as a verb that way, moved in cautiously towards Nagisa. At least now their heights would be in the aesthetically compatible arrangement. He placed one hand on the brick slightly above and to the right of Nagisa’s head, then pulled back and placed it a little lower so he could lean more comfortably. But was the angle too awkward now? And would his arm be in the way of the camera capturing Nagisa’s expression? In a way this was even more confounding than the social dance lessons his parents had made him take for a couple years in middle school, when he’d had to figure out where his hands went when dancing with girls. 

Finally, Nagisa took his wrist and moved his right hand down beside Nagisa’s shoulder, and maneuvered the one on the far side up high, with Rei resting most of his weight on his forearm so the lean looked both casual and kind of... _intimate_. Rei had the sudden urge to adjust his glasses to hide the warmth spreading in his cheeks, but he was afraid they’d have to start negotiating hand placement all over again if he moved now. 

Then Gou called from somewhere off to the side, “Okay, here we go!” and suddenly, Nagisa was turning his face slightly away from Rei’s, bright eyes flicking down and mouth pressing into a soft pout. Rei stared, dumbfounded at the abruptness and ease of the shift. He wasn’t even aware he was slack-jawed until Gou called, “Rei-kun, close your mouth and get in character too!”

Rei did his best to school his face into a serious expression, but it was difficult when Nagisa kept changing little things about his pose after each flurry of shutter snaps. Sometimes he darted his eyes up shyly to meet Rei’s under lowered lids rather than having them downcast, and once or twice Rei _swore_ he was biting his lip a little. It was...intensely distracting, even though Rei certainly couldn’t fault Nagisa’s devotion to the spirit of the scenario.

Then Nagisa reached up and slipped his glasses off. “Let’s try this.” Rei could no longer tell for certain, but he was pretty sure Nagisa was grinning impishly at him, even as Gou cried, “Nagisa-kun, you’re a genius!” from the background. Rei’s first instinct was to protest, as he did whenever Nagisa found it amusing to steal his glasses, but he couldn’t deny that it was harder to be distracted by the things Nagisa’s expression was doing when Nagisa himself was a vague cream and yellow blur in his vision. It did cause him to squint a little out of habit, but according to Gou that gave him a ‘cool, mysterious senpai vibe.’

Gou allowed them all to preview a few of the shots on the tiny camera screens after they’d finally wrapped. Nagisa had given him his glasses back--slid gently onto the bridge of his nose as always with a care that belied the mischievousness of his stealing them in the first place--so he could experience the odd mixture of embarrassed cringing and reluctant pride at how their efforts had turned out. Even the ones with laughably mismatched heights looked passable thanks to the aforementioned creative angles and a close focus on their faces and upper bodies.

“What d’ya think, Rei-chan?” Nagisa held the camera up for him to see. It was one of the last ones taken during their first round, where he’d been crouching and Nagisa’s face had been so close and the inside of his brain had been shading towards white noise. His expression in it still wasn’t something he would ever call beautiful, and even though the shadows disguised most of the red in his cheeks, _he_ knew it was there. 

But Nagisa’s expression was warm underneath the veneer of the smirking character he’d been playing, and even though Rei couldn’t see his clearly flustered, wide-eyed face as beautiful, he had the strange, not-unwelcome feeling that Nagisa might not agree with him.

Part of Rei wanted to tell Nagisa this, to tell him that he’d suddenly realized he felt oddly protective at the idea of this picture being seen by other people. 

Instead he said, “I think they came out rather well, considering the aesthetic difficulties involved. You, ah...you have a lovely eye for composition, Nagisa-kun.”

“Thanks Rei-chan!” Nagisa beamed up at him, and Rei couldn’t help smiling back, as he so often found himself doing, helpless in the face of Nagisa’s brightness.

**Author's Note:**

> *Nagisa is too powerful, you _know_ he could pull off both _kabedon_ 'roles' flawlessly. 
> 
> Gou eventually made them shoot all the other possible combinations too and it was amazing. I’d buy their _kabedon_ photobook. She’s already planning a collab with Samezuka for the sequel.


End file.
